Bellini's of Queenstown

... lunch.

After Lunch was a long 3 hour drive to Queenstown, the
activity capitol of the world. Clark informed us while in Queenstown he has the
day off. The six of us would have to come with whatever we wanted to do. On the drive, I asked Clark if he was going to
see anyone he knew there. It reminded him that a man from the previous tour had
gotten a job in Queenstown only 4 days later. He started telling us about Stan.
Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand orbwennam

... table had a few brain teaser puzzles on them, we moved around a few times until we found some we could do. My favourite was a bit of wood with 3 sticks coming off it and on the middle one was about 6different sized wood discs that were stacked from biggest to smallest. The aim of the game was to re-arrange them onto another stick but in the same order biggest to smallest and when you moved one it couldn't go on top of a smaller piece. Anyway it kept me quiet for about ...

... the famous Fergburger and called it a day.

Day two- I had met a girl in my hostel whom I invited to hike up the mountain with me and she took me up on it. To go up and come back down took us a little over 3 hours but totally worth it for the views (and cheaper than taking the boring gondola to the top) then we hit up the grocery store for some cheap eats for lunch and dinner and breaky the next day. Arriving back to Bumbles I met some guys from the ...

... bite marks under layers of clothing, the beacon on my forehead is giving the game away for me.

I also decided that when it comes to New Zealand less is more. As soon as I arrived in Queenstown I knew it was somewhere I wanted to spend quite a bit of time so I decided to increase my stay here from four nights to seven (you can imagine how happy the hostel staff are about that) but cut three days off my total time in the country. This means I am ...

... of the lake, it is surrounded by majestic mountains which, when I arrived were mainly covered with majestic clouds. Still, the adrenalin capital of New Zealand and one of it’s top tourist attractions is a cool place. Small, very ski resort like but with many more levels.

I took a walk around Queenstown dropping in at some of the outdoor shops for a little retail therapy, clocking the great wine tasting bar with similar Evo ...

... pub crawl on Saturday night which was great fun and met lots of fun people and suffered badly for it the next morning! When Sar and Tony left I had booked to go the bus down to Te Anau and then a coach trip to Milford Sound for the following Sunday. The road to Milford sound was actually closed due to avalanches covering the road but when I booked they were hopeful that the road would open in the next couple of days. As the week continued and the road remained shut I was ...

Not too much to report here from Queenstown. It's an 1 1/2 hr from Wanaka but still in the same mountains. The town itself is a bit bigger, definately more touristy with much more happening, more bars, restaurants, big name shops. It is situated on a lake as well with mountains in the backdrop, and a lovely boardwalk around the water. It is beautiful but i have to say i ...

... and making us miss our girls massively. The evening was spent eating chili con carne and watching Saw III and the latest episode of The Apprentice. Tuesday saw us on a jet boat in the morning being bounced around and soaked in an hour of cold wet turbulence. All good fun though, and while the blood had returned to our faces we had lunch in a cool pub on The Mall, enjoying putting into practice our well-learnt lesson and sharing a 'lunch-sized' portion of 'Fush and Chups ...

... i was not amused! ok so i might be excited about seeing crocodiles and elephants and snakes and koalas and all the rest the next day, but i was not happy about seeing a spider tonight! no way! australia zoo : ) snappy crocs, friendly elephants, playful tiggers, naughty otters, cheeky parrots, venomous snakes, sneaky tasman devils, sleepy koalas, hungry kangies... the list goes on! what an amazing day, just walking around the zoo, watching all the animals getting fed, being played ...

... and Deb, Jenny and Martin, Laura and Wes. It was a great week of fun with a ridiculously crazy game of 21 as the definitive culmination point of madness. The snow was varied from concrete ice to deep snow. A lot of time was spent getting big air on the fun park jumps, I improved on my snowboarding, but was mostly skiing. Sadly I sprained a ligament on my right thumb skiing (the UCL or "skiers' thumb" for the initiated) and had to come back for an embarrassing, but none ...